Walkthrough:Return to the Monastery, Mission 2
This is the second part of mission 5 in the Path of War in Stronghold 2. Introduction As seen in the previous mission, you have to confront Edwin's army, who wants to get you at all costs. Meanwhile, Friar Jacob assigned some monks to rebuild his monastery with your help. Walkthrough You are left with Olaf's remaining buildings and your army. First of all, pause the game and delete the stockpile. Relocate it right to the cliff, as close as to the woods as you can. Then, relocate the granary near the stockpile (it is empty at the start) and remove every building: farms, the gallows, saw pits and wooden constructions. These activities reward you with a healthy 70-75 wood if you left gates and platforms unharmed. Then to the building up: place the market behind the manor house and then, you should place two wheat farms, a mill, five or so apple farms, two fletchers, three to five saw pits, a quarry with its ox, two hovels, the barracks and the armoury. Erect the armoury and the barracks so they will be a part of the wall line. Build a gong pit near the stockpile. You may be left with few gold to recruit some archers to start with. Return your Lord to civilian duties (he will lose his mount) and assign your remaining warrior monks at 'defensive' to guard him. Grab your archers and some spearmen and send them to the slope just next to the bridge. Spread out your remaining spearmen on the barracks roof and other locations. As wood comes in, build some bakeries and more saw pits. You can also place more quarries and ox tethers, but leave some wood for the fletchers to work with. When stone is available, build a Lord's kitchen along your imaginary wall line and slowly build your walls. Friar Jacob's monks will come and take a little stone to rebuild the monastery, leave some for them. Don't forget to place hovels to increase population. Recruit archers for your walls. Keep selling apples and wood. Soon a first invasion should arrive with a handful of spearmen and archers. They try to obstruct monks, but your already prepared squad should hold them off with little casualties. When these troops are done, regroup your archers and spearmen on the top of the walls. You may add a second gong pit. Place a pig farm and two eel ponds to have a good variety of royal food. Place two more fletchers and two apple farms. When stone starts piling up, build a Lookout Tower and send archers to the top of it. A small gatehouse should be placed facing the saw pits, to shorten journey time. Place a treasury and hand out extra rations to your peasants to have a small income boost. Spread your spearmen equally on the walls and put them on 'defensive'. Set the 'archer' assembly point to the barracks roof if you don't want to send them to the walls every time. Send the catapults in front of your wall line. Sooner or later a second invasion will come. It consists of archers and spearmen, with the company of laddermen. When they erect the siege camp, command your catapults to destroy it. Meanwhile your archers should be busy killing the advancing troops off. Few units will make it up to the walls, but your spearmen will decimate them in no time. Buy in some bows to reinforce bowmen. The final invasion will follow a bit later. It is the same army, just in a bigger size. Again, use your catapults to destroy the siege camp, then focus on the army. You can lose your catapults and even let a few spearmen inside, as your defense is more than unlikely to fend off the ladder swarm, but with your numerous archers, they won't get too far. Your only task is then to wait the monastery to build up. When this is accomplished, a group of monks leaves the monastery and crosses the map to leave this sacred ground and you win. The Aftermath Edwin is shown slaughtering one of his retreating spearmen fed up with his recent defeat. He shouts to Steele and William, taunting the new Royal Champion. William is surprised to hear this, but Steele can deal with this and urges Edwin to leave. Alternative strategies *You can win the mission with the initial layout, but it is much harder that way. *One or more poleturners can be added if not many spearmen survived the siege against Olaf. *There are multiple ways to slow down Edwin's troops: man traps against laddermen, killing pits and rolling logs against groups. You may also use the rolling logs to tear down siege camps. Images Category:Stronghold 2 Walkthroughs Category:SH2 Path of War